


Fixing the thing

by Radiolaria



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 01:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is bad blood between them. And screws and tools. A lot of fixing up to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fixing the thing

On the floor were cables and screws, blue prints and manuals, tea mugs and handkerchiefs, all tinted in the cold electric under-console light. And River and the Doctor lying side by side.

 

 

She was fiddling, humming a song he thought he heard in dreams only. Her hands dancing around the circuit. She was stitching.

Sewing away her troubled mind. Tickling straight her lined forehead.

Married for so long, he still could not quite read her.

His gaze fell back to her busy fingers.

The littleness of her hand is something to marvel at.

The sting of a tip caught his attention as he was vaguely trying to reconnect tiny strings of delicate time nets. There was always blood.

She sighed and he pouted back.

“Pass the hanky.”

“Again? You know I could give it a try. My hands are much more…”

He snarled at her before responding.

“Your hands are very small, thank you. Their ability to sneak in wherever it pleases them to be almost equal that of their owner.”

 

 

“Are you sulking, dear?”

“I’m not sulking. Pass the screwdriver, Sweetie please.”

 

 

“Sweetie there’s a cockroach in your time-rotor.”

Her goggles were swallowing half her face, leaving her curls in a riotous state of disarray. He bounced from the swing to his feet and scurried to her side, as close as he could to the viewing device.

“It can’t be here. Nothing could sustain that level of time energy.”

“Well it is not _any_ cockroach; it seemed to have evolved to a _super_ -cockroach. It has built himself a little sofa with time dust and bits of strings. I think it mistakes the time vortex for live TV.”

Her tone was light and jolly. He didn’t know vermin was that interesting.

“Really? That’s… not cool. Cockroaches are not cool. I doubt the old girl likes having cockroaches around.”

River sat straight, removed the goggles and pinched the bridge of her nose before replying.

“No need to _doubt_ about it, she doesn’t. She just grilled it on the spot.”

“Oh. _She_ ’s ruthless.”

 

 

They danced around each other.

Mostly, she would work on the circuits; he would rewire everything with everything.

At some point, he accidentally hitched her hair and burnt a few inches of a curl.

He flailed, sheepishly and tossed the curl back on top of her bent head, below the swing, hoping she would not notice the burning smell.

As it bounced back before her eyes, shrivelled and scorched, a gasp escaped her mouth, anger twitching her nose.

Of course he’d been careless by ignoring her. Which could make her blood boil.

She jumped upward and he just had time to put away the sonic before she did something she would regret.

Like kill him.

Or his hair.

Which was likely to happen since there was no hat on top of his hair to kill.

 

 

“You’ve let the lever fall into the engine.”

“You tackled me!” She bit back, offended, and threw a fist in a ball of wires.

“You were trying to burn my hair!” He gesticulated around his mop. ”Look, they’re all dry now.”

“They’re always like that.”

 

 

The TARDIS was whirring with each of his attempts at synchronising the levers. He gave up, arms dangling at his sides, eyes tracking with pity the column. He looked over his shoulder to call River.

“You know, about what I said earlier…”

She glanced up from the intricate circuit she was examining.

“About…” He was feeling his way around his sentence, grasping at unyielding words.

“About me spoiling everything when companions are around?” she cut him off, sharply.

His face flicked with an anguished spasm. It was hard hearing the words he had uttered hours ago thrown back at him. Like a puncture right between his hearts, the pain seeping out into each one. He could only imagine what it had done to hers.

Hard heart, as it was.

Her face in confrontation was showing not even a hint of hurt.

“I _understand_ , you know. I’m a show-off. As much as you are. I _need_ people to look at me and gasp in wonder at my showcases.”

He furrowed his brows. Did he come out as that vain to her? Of course he was a show-off. But there was a chance he was working hard on impressing her as much as the others.

She was rambling on about him being a wizard and a magician.

“Which are two _very_ different things.” She insisted on.

Enough fiddling, he thought.

He shut her mouth with his free hand.

“No. Listen to me. _You_ are spoiling it. _Always_ will. Because I cannot be anything but entirely focused on _you_ when you are beside me. And right beside me, also, there’s a girl, who _needs_ me. Because she has a tendency to die. A lot. And right now, I’m working really hard on her staying alive as long as possible. Because I _want_ to find out why she dies a lot. So. I’m sorry I snapped at you. But please, don’t drag her into anything dangerous… you know, the deadly kind of dangerous. Okay? I’m sorry, didn’t mean what I said. _Not really_. You know better and you’re cute with your goggles I should have told you.”

He studied the flow of emotion on her face. Relief. Pure relief and thankfulness.

And love, a lot. But that was River. Not his apology.

A kiss somehow found its way to the tip of her nose. Because it was not easy with his hand still cupping her mouth.

He released her, anxious for her to process and answer, only to find out he had smudged her lips with grease. He grimaced, brought his hand to his mouth and bit, pouted then withered his fingers before trying timidly to point at her lips.

“You’ve got…”He trailed off.

Judging by her _blasé_ puckering, she sensed it.

“Oh, I _know_ that.” Her expression softened and she just poured herself into his arms, suddenly. He settled his arms, hands, head, right where they were supposed to fit, around her, between her curls, against her neck.

She drew in a breath against his chest.

“Thank you.”

 

On the floor were cables and screws, blue prints and manuals, tea mugs and handkerchiefs, all tinted in the cold electric under-console light. And River and the Doctor lying side by side.

 

“Do you remember the time when you override the pressure altimeter brink?”

Her hand was roaming across his chest, poking at the flesh, with a faraway smile. He jerked up his head to properly look at her.

“Hey! Down there! Pay _attention!”_

“Sweetie, you’re the only one _talking_ in here. And the only one _willing_ to listen.”

She put a finger on his mouth before breaking out in a throaty laugh.

“Pass the crackers, Sweetie.”

 

 

“Are you tired of me?”

“Always.”

He pouted. Certainly not the answer he expected. A gentle smile blossomed on her lips.

“Are you tired of _me_?”

He questioned her, silently, waiting for the trick to reveal itself.

“Never.”

Her smile grew even larger.

“That’s the trouble. You must allow yourself to be, you know, _tired of me_. Then, you will feel better about being angry at me for such nonsense. I just... _Thank you_ for talking to me. About it. That’s all. I don’t need your apology. I know I have it. Always.”

He relinquished the piece of junk he was trying to bring back to life and crawled toward River who welcomed him with tea and a fondle.

“Why is it you always seem to have been married for _much_ longer than I have?”

“Spoilers.”

 

 

“No, you don’t put it _there_! That’s not the way it works.”

“Sweetie, the reason it had not been working correctly for all these years is precisely because you always put it back together like this.”

The tiny machine was shoved up so fast in his face the Doctor baulked away in surprise. His chin, rested on the palm of his hand, jolted off and balanced him sideways. He capsized, landing on his back and wailing as the cables sprawled across the floor came into contact with his spine.

“ _That_ was spectacular.”

River, still propped up on her elbows, offered him a flabbergasted stare that was telling all he needed to know about his appeal to her at the moment. River has little if no tolerance for the complete lack of control he has over his limbs.

Not a week ago, she had confessed the real reason behind the handcuffs. That was to keep him from bumping her in any piece of furniture at a minimum distance of twenty inches from the bed every time they were getting it on.

”Nonsense”, he had huffed before breaking the nearest closet handle.

Staring idly at the glass floor above, he grunted and rolled backwards to find her side. Slightly, she shifted at the contact of his body before leaning back heavily on her left arm. She looked over him and whispered, unfazed.

“You _are_ an idiot. The reason why no Dark Lord ever managed to rid of you is because they can’t predict your next clumsy fall out of their trap.”

A proud smile spread on his lips.

“I’m not an idiot. I did fix with a strap of tape the main generator of the second spa. Madame was very pleased with that bit of clumsiness…”

With a sigh, she lowered herself to his level aiming for the plain screwdriver near the Doctor’s ears but came around to reach his collar. Her hand absently fastened and unfastened the upper button before flying away. Weighing the pros and cons, obviously.

“ _River_ , we’ve got work to do…”he warned her.

“You’re right, just _clumsy_ as hell,” she conceded, blatantly unapologetic, her hand suspended in mid-air

“I can’t seem to get _anything_ done with you around.” She cocked an eyebrow and her tiny hand darted to his collar slipping between the fabric, gently stroking his neck.

He flushed, inadvertently shifting closer to her.

“River, we are in the console room. There’re bits and bolts everywhere. And at least one of us is going to regret having oil in her hair. Again” He intended it to sound like a threat. Surprisingly, it came out as a mousy squeak. She was unscrewing the buttons of his shirt, one by one, kissing each inch of skin revealed.

“Oh, I’m aware of that, Sweetie,”she purred.

“Doctor!” A voice came down from above. They both jumped on their feet, the Doctor grabbing the nearest blue print to cover his state of undressing.

“I was looking for you everywhere! Thought you had just _forgotten_ me. You know, left in a rage. Picture it. The shrivelled old body of a young woman is found in a phony spaceship, floating pilotless in space. She died while the owner was too busy fighting and being immortal.”

River was beaming.

Clara bounced down the stairs, picking up the discarded sonic as she passed, completely unaware of the Doctor’s motioning behind the huge sheet.

“You really weren’t able to see us? Under the glass floor?” River inquired, enjoying the girl’s temporary cluelessness.

“As if I could miss you, Professor Song.” The brunette flirted back. “No, but your ship, Doctor, she kept sending me back to the oddest places. I had no _idea_ you had a Swiss chocolate factory in there.”

“We have? _Apparently_.” He popped up from behind the print, the eyes so ridiculously widened River nearly choked on her muffled laughter.

“Do you realise you two went missing for days?” Clara was obviously catching up on them, staring at the hastily buttoned up shirt. She folded her arms on her chest, adopting a posture he had witnessed only too often when she was interacting with children.

“We had a thing to fix,” he unconvincingly tried.

“What thing could _possibly_ require you to work on it for _days_?” She glanced back at the crackers and tea thermos. “Don’t tell me you lived on infusions and biscuits _only_!” The sarcasm in her tone was so petulant the Doctor felt like disappearing underground.

“Well, not only…”

 

Notes: [For anyone interested, here is the doodle that started this thing.](http://onaperduamedee.tumblr.com/image/45869298924)


End file.
